Vod had left the beast warehouse after selecting another beast for the soul stone experiment. After he left all the beasts let out a sigh of relief, figuratively speaking of course.
One of the beasts began to communicate to the others. It was communicating in beast tongue, which is a language only beasts can understand. To others, it would just sound like growls. All of the beasts in the underground warehouse turned to one beast. It was the Stage Three beast, it was the strongest beast in the warehouse. It was also probably the strongest creature in the camp. The only one that was stronger than it was a man with three gold stripes, he was the one who had captured it.
"What did I say! Don't show hostility to that man... I have been here for a long time and have seen countless of our kind perish down here."
The Stage Three beast was wrapped in chains. The other beasts didn't even know what it looked like because there was a tarp covering the cage. They just knew that it was stronger than them because of the pressure it emitted.
"Shadow wolf, losing one of your pack is painful. But you must not show killing intent, he may try and kill more of you out of spite."
The Shadow wolves let out apologetic whines. The pack then howled in mourning of their fallen friend. All of the beasts present went silent to give them a moment of respect and comfort.
When a beast reaches Stage Three, they will gain intelligence, beast tongue, and will evolve to a superior form of their species. The Stage Three beast in the warehouse was naturally intelligent and understood that Vod was not a good person.
All the beasts wanted to escape. With the Stage Three beast, they could easily escape. The only problem was the presence of the man with gold stripes, he was stronger than them and as a result they could not escape. A better way to say it would would be that they shouldn't, they could but they would be killed by that man.
Getting killed would defeat the purpose of escaping, hence they needed to wait for an opportunity.
'The best time would be when that man leaves or an opportunity presents itself, when that happens we will be able to escape and leave this god forsaken place.'
As the beast leader in the facility, he had a responsibility to uphold. He wanted the beasts to return safely. Some of them would die fighting other beasts in the future, but the point is that they would have freedom.
'Hmm, it's almost that time... That should be a good opportunity to escape...' If the beast could smile, a smile surely would have crept up its face.
They got a bestial feeling that in less than two years they would be able to escape. The beasts began to plan their escape much more than before because of this feeling. They began to observe their surroundings much more closely, entrances, exits, guard rotations, just all the patterns in general. The Stage Three beast even picked up on some crucial information from the guards who were conducting idle chatter.
'Interesting, they call the beast clash a monster wave. Either way it doesn't matter to me, now we just need to bide out time. During this so called "beast wave" that man will surely be occupied.'
Escaping would not be a problem at that time, as long as they didn't encounter the commander. The beasts kept observing, both the patterns and their environment.
Several moons had passed (a moon is ~30 days) and during that time they could only watch their companions slowly disappear. It was truly demoralizing watching your friends get taken away one by one, but they had to endure. They had to endure to see their home again.
The Stage Three beast was frustrated, he could help but doing so would cause him to get killed. If he died than the other beasts would have no hope of seeing the outside of the facility again. As much as it pained him, he needed to wait.
While the Stage Three beast was feeling helpless, it felt a small mana fluctuation.
'cute... One of those monkeys above just broke through to the first stage. Wait, what! This mana signature...'
The beast was a little surprised, the mana fluctuation he felt came from an interesting individual. Only a high Stage beast or person would be able to tell the difference.
'I should stop by to investigate a little when I break out of here'
-=-=- [ One month before ] -=-=-
Cage was able to walk and talk after a few months of therapy, but he still couldn't run. The assistant estimated he would be done in two months or so at his current rate. His endurance was now very good, it was good enough to be considered at professional athlete level on his old world. He had also reached peak-level of Stage 0, but he had no clue how to progress to Stage one. Fortunately, he would be able to ask Andrew.
When Cage first talked, Andrew was a little surprised but he was happy because they could actually hold a conversation. Even though Andrew knows his name is Cage, he still keeps calling him "kid". He didn't mind though, he was close to Andrew and at this point in time they were like father and son. Andrew's friend had also just left one day without saying anything, the medical staff said he was discharged and his treatment was done. With that, they got permission to share the same room because there was still an unused bed in Cage's room. He had also offered his blanket to Andrew as a sign of good will, but Andrew had rejected saying that he didn't need.
Wanting to reach Stage one as soon as possible for the impending beast wave, Cage asked Andrew how. "Old man, how do I reach Stage one? I've been stuck at peak level for a month now."
Andrew thought about for a moment before answering, "To reach the next Stage, you need to make the mana acknowledge you."
"What? How do you do tha-"
Andrew quickly cut him off, "Save your questions for after I finish explaining. To get the mana to acknowledge you, you need to accomplish an impressive feat. An example could be fighting something strong and winning. For my increase from Stage zero to Stage one, It was when I escaped from several people who were two Stages higher than me after I stole the soul gem in that story I told a while ago. I nearly died while I was escaping. Hahh, the good old days..."
"Hmm, alright. I think I understand..."
'Yes, he is definitely a battle maniac... No sane person would reminisce about almost dying.' Cage had confirmed his suspicions that he had had about Andrew's personality, but at this point it made no difference to him.
'The question is, how am I going to accomplish something impressive... I'm still in the facility and my rehab will still be going on for another two months or so...'
Cage suddenly had a thought, if it could work then it would solve his predicament.
"I just realized I have never seen a skill before. Do you know any?"
"Hmm really? That's a little surprising, it is true that I probably haven't showed you any before. I can show one or two of them to you if you'd like."
Andrew moved opposite of the wall and turned around to face it. "The skill I'm going to show you is called [ Wind Blade ]."
Andrew raised his arm and swung it down at an incredibly fast speed to perform a chopping motion. A slight disturbance in the air could be seen in the path the wind blade traveled. It collided with the bricks and left a gash as deep as the length of ones fingernail.
"Normally it would be stronger if I had a dagger, pity..."
Cage was slightly stunned, 'That's a skill?! It was so strong and apparently it can be stronger?! I need to get a skill for myself.'
"That was so strong!"
"Hahaha! you haven't seen anything yet, with every Stage you progress, your skills get stronger. If a Stage 5 were to use my [ Wind Blade ] skill, it would be able to go straight through solid metal easily!"
Andrew chuckled a little, Cage truly hadn't seen anything yet. He was a frog in a well right now.
"Unfortunately for you, you can only use skills once you reach Stage one."
Seeing Cage's disappointed and confused expression, Andrew elaborated a little bit more. "Stage one is when you're able to sense the different elemental mana energies, it's also when you find out your own affinity. To use skills, you also need a good control over mana. This is also why their strength increases as you reach higher Stages."
Cage was a little dejected because his first idea wouldn't work, but he suddenly had another idea that might even be better than his first.
His idea was involved his level of mana control. He figured that if he could control mana well, not only would it allow him to gather mana faster. He might even have his skills be stronger than normal. He didn't have any idea on how to achieve a feat to break through to Stage one yet, or at least until he got out of the medical facility. Once he was out he might be able to fight a strong beast for his level and break through or something.
"Andrew, how do I improve my mana control?"
"The only way that I know if is just through practice, there isn't any shortcuts unless you have a special object or something." After answering Cage's question, Andrew laid down on his bed with his hands behind his head with his knees up. He wanted to relax a little and hence closed his eyes. despite his energetic attitude, he found it tiring answering all of Cage's questions. He didn't mind it, but he couldn't help but feel like he was being quizzed about his knowledge with every question.
Cage began to try and improve his mana control through practice, he found application much easier to understand than explanations. He sat in a comfortable position to meditate keep his focus in check. At Cage's current level, trying to manipulate mana was like trying to control a piece of paper with your breath but from a distance. His manipulation of mana was only at the most basic level.
'To increase my control, it might be a good idea to try and make different shapes with my mana for now. That's probably all I might even be able to attempt...'
Cage first tried to gather mana outside his body and keep it there. That in itself already proved incredibly difficult. He could easily expel mana from his body now that he had a method, but keeping it in one spot without letting it dissipate was a whole other challenge. Mana was typically in a gaseous state most of the time so it was hard to control, but mana could also be in a liquid and solid state if it was dense enough. Of course it was much harder to control liquid mana than gas, and even harder to control solid mana compared to it's liquid and gaseous counterparts.
After a couple hours, he was finally able to gather mana to one spot and hold it there. He held out his hand and visualized mana gathering. An organic blob of translucent gas appeared above his hand. He wasn't able to manipulate it's shape yet and he could only maintain it for a few seconds at most. He had spent a lot of time just getting to the first step so he was a little disappointed. If Andrew had heard Cage's inner thoughts, he would have coughed up blood.
Andrew sensed the bit of mana gathering and was curious. Slightly opening an eye, he saw the mana above Cage's hand. 'Didn't he only start a few hours ago?! This kid is a true monster... It would even take those prodigies from the kingdoms a few weeks to get to this level of control at Stage 0, but this kid is already able to maintain his mana outside his body!'